Short Cuts: a Postmodern Analysis
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Short Cuts: A Postmodern Analysis In this article, I am not going to spend any time trying to prove that I am right and that the others are wrong when assigning meaning to the word postmodernism. Having an argument about right and wrong definitions would represent a completely non-postmodern pursuit. What am I going to concentrate on instead, is to explain how and why I look at postmodernism or better to say postmodernisms. Why plural, because postmodernism cannot be really pinned down to a single definition, different people interpret it differently and they are all correct. I hope that you would find my explanation to be amusing, and possibly beneficial for your comprehension of the cinematic arts. Let me present some basic concepts defining these three philosophical worldviews— premodern, modern, and postmodern—I primarily look at their relationship toward the truth and redemption. The premodern view is rooted in sacred redemption; which is a philosophical belief that all epistemological questions are in the hands of some divine power. The deity or deities know the truth and therefore they control the universe and the fate of the humankind. The premodern film may, more than often, present a sacred redemptionsitic narrative within the form of one or more synergetic, linear patterns of acts. Humankind (at least in the normative, western, Judeo-Christian context) will be born fallible and mortal and, within the film, will be redeemed or not redeemed from this lot via some sort of divine grace. Films such as: Ten Commandments (divine powers of Jewish God), The Exorcist (showcase - Satan vs. God), Star Wars saga (metaphor for divine powers of Christianity - father Dart Vader, son Luke Skywalker, holy spirit The Force), etc. all paradigmatically exemplify premodern philosophical worldview. On the other hand, the modern view is rooted in secular redemption; which is a philosophical belief that humanity is the most significant thing in the anthropocentric universe. Progressive civilization will be able to find the perfection and the truth through its own advances in science and technology, without any help from divine powers. The modern film, therefore, presents a secular redemptionistic narrative that will more than likely take the form of one of more synergetic, linear patterns of acts. The vulnerable and mortal condition of humankind in an amoral universe is considered tragic and unacceptable—meriting both mega and micro redemptive pursuits. Within the modern film, humankind is more or less redeemed or left not redeemed. That is either because of its own actions or because of the existential change. Even though, much at the moment may appear to be beyond humanity’s reach, and humankind in spite of its best efforts often gets overwhelmed by its lot—the modern film, anthropocentric in its essence, insists that; still, all these problems are mere temporary appearance of downfall that will be transcended and defeated in the long run. Films such as: War Games (humans and computer save the world from the thermo-nuclear war), Star Trek films (humans act as a space police), James Bond films (007 saves the planet repeatedly), etc, all paradigmatically exemplify modern philosophical worldview. 2 Postmodern view is rooted in a-redemption (agnostic) or anti-redemption (atheist) philosophical beliefs. These beliefs replace the truth with contextual truthfulness that represents the most pragmatic way of dealing with reality and the absurdness of human condition in the vast and dynamic universe. The humankind’s attempts to gain control and make meaning of such complexity and contradiction are horrendously limited to a bricolage of temporarily available information (the truthfulness). Therefore, the most important signs for the premodern and modern views, such as God, perfection, and truth; are regarded by postmodernists as ever changing from existential situation to existential situation. Within a postmodern world-view, the importance of humankind is considered cosmically insignificant. However, this situation is not regarded tragic by any means. Knowing full well the absurdness of human condition, postmodern philosophical stance uses the pragmatic approach to overcome, what would premodern and modern positions consider a BIG tragedy. Since the absolute truth is of no importance, the focus is put on small local neighborhoods within which there is a possibility of a bricolage-limited making meaning, grasping the reality inside the contextual truthfulness—not the absolute truth. Through this postmodern approach, mega-narratives for redemption, such as premodern religious narratives, and modern anthropocentric technological pursuits, are replaced with mini- narratives that allow only small redemption and consequently small tragedy. Thus, the human condition is considered comedic rather than tragic. Films such as: Jesus of Montreal, Don Juan De Marco, To Die For, Mighty Aphrodite, Pret A Porter, All That Jazz, Galaxy Quest, etc. all paradigmatically exemplify postmodern philosophical worldview. 3 These proposed categories are to serve a descriptive and quantitative function and are not intended as being either prescriptive or qualitative. There are aesthetically good and bad experiences to be found in all three categories, although it would be foolish not to acknowledge the fact that each person is most likely to embrace films that are most compatible with their own philosophic stance. The categories are synchronic and trans- historical in this case—not referring in any way to chronological history. All three forms may, or may not be, found in a give historical period, if, of course, the technology that makes them possible is available in the period of which we are speaking. Now, let me concentrate to the paradigmatic structure of postmodern configurations—the core of confusion when in comes to defining what is and is not postmodern film. I would like to elaborate more on what those structural elements are, and how are they related to the postmodern philosophical viewpoint using a landmark of postmodern cinema—Short Cuts by Robert Altman. Short Cuts is a synchronic presentation of eight short stories by Raymond Carver. This ironic mosaic of the contemporary life in Los Angeles at the end of the film gets interrupted with an earthquake that has a possibility of sending the entire southern California straight down to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. When it turns out that the earthquake is not the Big One, everybody continues on, like nothing has ever happened: “It’s another great day in L.A., and all’s right with the world!” cheerfully announces the gyro pilot Stormy Weathers to the early morning TV audience. 4 To demonstrate the paradigmatic postmodern aspect of Short Cuts I would like to brush its content against the characteristics most often found in postmodern aesthetic configurations. These characteristics are: discontinuity, reflexivity, collage, eclecticism, double coding, parody, pastiche, irony, contradiction and complexification, and the most important ones—big C - comedy, small t –tragedy, big A – Aredemptionism, and small r – redemption. Let me start out by considering Short Cuts as it relates to discontinuity, reflexivity, and collage. For the purposes of my Short Cuts explication I found it expedient to combine the first three aesthetic postmodern characteristics into a single discussion. The structure of Short Cuts is constructed around eight short stories that are presented in a discontinuous and fragmented narrative style. Discontinuities in postmodern configurations call to the perceiver’s attention that infinitude is constructed of mega- complexity and contradiction, and the best of all rational realities constructed by humankind is only pragmatic, truthful bricolage awaiting dismantlement and deconstruction. In Short Cuts, like the torn pieces of a dynamic collage, you get a scrap of one story, then a scrap of another, and then a scrap of the third story, and then, perhaps, you go back and pick up the continuity of the first story and continue its narrative, just before of the introduction of the fourth narrative. The discontinuous bits are not thrown at you in a haphazard way but are ordered in carefully edited and extremely intelligent sequences that are tributes to Altman’s wit and talent as a filmmaker. A perfect example of this disjunct, collage-like style is evident in the opening credits of Short Cuts when Altman cleverly uses the sight and the sound of a fleet of medfly spraying helicopters to 5 inter-cut introductory bits of all eight of his synchronic narratives about hypermodern Los Angeles. The collage technique, that Altman uses in Short Cuts, is one of the most used forms in both linear and spatial acts in postmodernism. Collage permits the complexities and contradictions of our day to be juxtaposed in a form that is at the same time pluralistically open yet holistically closed. Altman gives the viewer credit for truthful aesthetic intellect—intellect that must be active and never passive, for it is only through concentrated reflexivity hat the viewer can assemble the scraps into the meaningful and dynamic collage that Altman has created and attain full enjoyment of his films. Because postmodern configurations may be implicit and discontinuous they often require reflexive interpretations from the perceiver. No reflexivity—no connections and no realizations of a configurations’ potential meaning. In Short Cuts the viewer must be able to reflexively assemble what has gone on in a particular narrative with what is going on at the moment, then carry it al forward into the development of new pattern of acts. For example, the viewer must fit Clara the clown into her own narrative as wife of the salesman while interfacing her with the cop’s narrative and that of the artist and the doctor, not to mention the moment when three Short Cuts narratives trisect at the baker shop as characters simultaneously get birthday cakes. Clara for one of her professional parties; the newscaster’s wife for her son’s birthday celebration; and Stormy, the helicopter pilot, to placate his disaffected wife.